One Year Bible

Lamentations 1:1-2:22

How Lonely Lies the City!

(2 Kings 24:10–17)

1 How lonely lies the city,

once so full of people!

She who was great among the nations

has become a widow.

The princess of the provinces

has become a slave.

2 She weeps aloud in the night,

with tears upon her cheeks.

Among all her lovers

there is no one to comfort her.

All her friends have betrayed her;

they have become her enemies.

3 Judah has gone into exile

under affliction and harsh slavery;

she dwells among the nations

but finds no place to rest.

All her pursuers have overtaken her

in the midst of her distress.

4 The roads to Zion mourn,

because no one comes to her appointed feasts.

All her gates are deserted;

her priests groan,

her maidens grieve,

and she herself is bitter with anguish.

5 Her foes have become her masters;

her enemies are at ease.

For the Lord has brought her grief

because of her many transgressions.

Her children have gone away

as captives before the enemy.

6 All the splendor has departed

from the Daughter of Zion.

Her princes are like deer

that find no pasture;

they lack the strength to flee

in the face of the hunter.

7 In the days of her affliction and wandering

Jerusalem remembers all the treasures

that were hers in days of old.

When her people fell into enemy hands

she received no help.

Her enemies looked upon her,

laughing at her downfall.

8 Jerusalem has sinned greatly;

therefore she has become an object of scorn.

All who honored her now despise her,

for they have seen her nakedness;

she herself groans and turns away.

9 Her uncleanness stains her skirts;

she did not consider her end.

Her downfall was astounding;

there was no one to comfort her.

Look, O LORD, on my affliction,

for the enemy has triumphed!

10 The adversary has seized

all her treasures.

For she has seen the nations

enter her sanctuary—

those You had forbidden

to enter Your assembly.

11 All her people groan

as they search for bread.

They have traded their treasures for food

to keep themselves alive.

Look, O LORD, and consider,

for I have become despised.

12 Is this nothing to you, all you who pass by?

Look around and see!

Is there any sorrow like mine,

which was inflicted on me,

which the Lord made me suffer

on the day of His fierce anger?

13 He sent fire from on high,

and it overpowered my bones.

He spread a net for my feet

and turned me back.

He made me desolate,

faint all the day long.

14 My transgressions are bound into a yoke,

knit together by His hand;

they are draped over my neck,

and the Lord has broken my strength.

He has delivered me into the hands

of those I cannot withstand.

15 The Lord has rejected

all the mighty men in my midst;

He has summoned an army against me

to crush my young warriors.

Like grapes in a winepress,

the Lord has trampled the Virgin Daughter of Judah.

16 For these things I weep;

my eyes flow with tears.

For there is no one nearby to comfort me,

no one to revive my soul.

My children are destitute

because the enemy has prevailed.

17 Zion stretches out her hands,

but there is no one to comfort her.

The Lord has decreed against Jacob

that his neighbors become his foes.

Jerusalem has become

an unclean thing among them.

18 The Lord is righteous,

yet I rebelled against His command.

Listen, all you people;

look upon my suffering.

My young men and maidens

have gone into captivity.

19 I called out to my lovers,

but they have betrayed me.

My priests and elders

perished in the city

while they searched for food

to keep themselves alive.

20 See, O LORD, how distressed I am!

I am churning within;

my heart is pounding within me,

for I have been most rebellious.

Outside, the sword bereaves;

inside, there is death.

21 People have heard my groaning,

but there is no one to comfort me.

All my enemies have heard of my trouble;

they are glad that You have caused it.

May You bring the day You have announced,

so that they may become like me.

22 Let all their wickedness come before You,

and deal with them

as You have dealt with me

because of all my transgressions.

For my groans are many,

and my heart is faint.

God’s Anger over Jerusalem

1 How the Lord has covered the Daughter of Zion

with the cloud of His anger!

He has cast the glory of Israel

from heaven to earth.

He has abandoned His footstool

in the day of His anger.

2 Without pity the Lord has swallowed up

all the dwellings of Jacob.

In His wrath He has demolished

the fortified cities of the Daughter of Judah.

He brought to the ground and defiled

her kingdom and its princes.

3 In fierce anger He has cut off

every horn of Israel

and withdrawn His right hand

at the approach of the enemy.

He has burned in Jacob like a flaming fire

that consumes everything around it.

4 He has bent His bow like an enemy;

His right hand is positioned.

Like a foe He has killed

all who were pleasing to the eye;

He has poured out His wrath like fire

on the tent of the Daughter of Zion.

5 The Lord is like an enemy;

He has swallowed up Israel.

He has swallowed up all her palaces

and destroyed her strongholds.

He has multiplied mourning and lamentation

for the Daughter of Judah.

6 He has laid waste His tabernacle like a garden booth;

He has destroyed His place of meeting.

The Lord has made Zion forget

her appointed feasts and Sabbaths.

In His fierce anger

He has despised both king and priest.

7 The Lord has rejected His altar;

He has abandoned His sanctuary;

He has delivered the walls of her palaces

into the hand of the enemy.

They have raised a shout in the house of the Lord

as on the day of an appointed feast.

8 The Lord determined to destroy

the wall of the Daughter of Zion.

He stretched out a measuring line

and did not withdraw His hand from destroying.

He made the ramparts and walls lament;

together they waste away.

9 Her gates have sunk into the ground;

He has destroyed and shattered their bars.

Her king and her princes are exiled among the nations,

the law is no more,

and even her prophets

find no vision from the Lord.

10 The elders of the Daughter of Zion

sit on the ground in silence.

They have thrown dust on their heads

and put on sackcloth.

The young women of Jerusalem

have bowed their heads to the ground.

11 My eyes fail from weeping;

I am churning within.

My heart is poured out in grief

over the destruction of the daughter of my people,

because children and infants faint

in the streets of the city.

12 They cry out to their mothers:

“Where is the grain and wine?”

as they faint like the wounded

in the streets of the city,

as their lives fade away

in the arms of their mothers.

13 What can I say for you?

To what can I compare you,

O Daughter of Jerusalem?

To what can I liken you,

that I may console you,

O Virgin Daughter of Zion?

For your wound is as deep as the sea.

Who can ever heal you?

14 The visions of your prophets

were empty and deceptive;

they did not expose your guilt

to ward off your captivity.

The burdens they envisioned for you

were empty and misleading.

15 All who pass by

clap their hands at you in scorn.

They hiss and shake their heads

at the Daughter of Jerusalem:

“Is this the city that was called

the perfection of beauty,

the joy of all the earth?”

16 All your enemies

open their mouths against you.

They hiss and gnash their teeth,

saying, “We have swallowed her up.

This is the day for which we have waited.

We have lived to see it!”

17 The Lord has done what He planned;

He has accomplished His decree,

which He ordained in days of old;

He has overthrown you without pity.

He has let the enemy gloat over you

and exalted the horn of your foes.

18 The hearts of the people

cry out to the Lord.

O wall of the Daughter of Zion,

let your tears run down like a river

day and night.

Give yourself no relief,

and your eyes no rest.

19 Arise, cry out in the night

from the first watch of the night.

Pour out your heart like water

in the presence of the Lord.

Lift up your hands to Him

for the lives of your children

who are fainting from hunger

on the corner of every street.

20 Look, O LORD, and consider:

Whom have You ever treated like this?

Should women eat their offspring,

the infants they have nurtured?

Should priests and prophets be killed

in the sanctuary of the Lord?

21 Both young and old lie together

in the dust of the streets.

My young men and maidens

have fallen by the sword.

You have slain them in the day of Your anger;

You have slaughtered them without compassion.

22 You summoned my terrors on every side,

as for the day of an appointed feast.

In the day of the Lord’s anger

no one escaped or survived;

my enemy has destroyed

those I nurtured and reared.

Philemon 1:1-25

Greetings from Paul and Timothy

(Philippians 1:1–2; Colossians 1:1–2)

1 Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother,

To Philemon our beloved fellow worker, 2to Apphia our sister, to Archippus our fellow soldier, and to the church that meets at your house:

3 Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Philemon’s Faith and Love

4 I always thank my God, remembering you in my prayers, 5because I hear about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints. 6I pray that your partnership in the faith may become effective as you fully acknowledge every good thing that is ours in Christ. 7I take great joy and encouragement in your love, because you, brother, have refreshed the hearts of the saints.

Paul’s Appeal for Onesimus

8 So although in Christ I am bold enough to order you to do what is proper, 9I prefer to appeal on the basis of love. For I, Paul, am now aged, and a prisoner of Christ Jesus as well.

10 I appeal to you for my child Onesimus, whose father I became while I was in chains. 11Formerly he was useless to you, but now he has become useful both to you and to me. 12I am sending back to you him who is my very heart.

13 I would have liked to keep him with me, so that on your behalf he could minister to me in my chains for the gospel. 14But I did not want to do anything without your consent, so that your goodness will not be out of compulsion, but by your own free will. 15For perhaps this is why he was separated from you for a while, so that you might have him back for good — 16no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a beloved brother. He is especially beloved to me, but even more so to you, both in person and in the Lord.

17 So if you consider me a partner, receive him as you would receive me. 18But if he has wronged you in any way or owes you anything, charge it to my account. 19I, Paul, write this with my own hand. I will repay it— not to mention that you owe me your very self.

20 Yes, brother, let me have some benefit from you in the Lord. Refresh my heart in Christ.

21 Confident of your obedience, I write to you, knowing that you will do even more than I ask.

22 In the meantime, prepare a guest room for me, because I hope that through your prayers I will be restored to you.

Additional Greetings

23 Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, sends you greetings, 24as do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke, my fellow workers.

25 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.

Psalm 101:1-8

I Will Set No Worthless Thing before My Eyes

1 A Psalm of David.

I will sing of Your loving devotion and justice;

to You, O LORD, I will sing praises.

2 I will ponder the way that is blameless —

when will You come to me?

I will walk in my house

with integrity of heart.

3 I will set no worthless thing

before my eyes.

I hate the work of those who fall away;

it shall not cling to me.

4 A perverse heart shall depart from me;

I will know nothing of evil.

5 Whoever slanders his neighbor in secret,

I will put to silence;

the one with haughty eyes and a proud heart,

I will not endure.

6 My eyes favor the faithful of the land,

that they may dwell with me;

he who walks in the way of integrity

shall minister to me.

7 No one who practices deceit

shall dwell in my house;

no one who tells lies

shall stand in my presence.

8 Every morning I will remove all the wicked of the land,

that I may cut off every evildoer from the city of the Lord.

Proverbs 26:20

20 Without wood, a fire goes out;

without gossip, a conflict ceases.

sozo church

One Year Bible

Lamentations 1:1-2:22

Philemon 1:1-25

Psalm 101:1-8

Proverbs 26:20